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Chris Wesseling

Training Camp Lowdown

Training Camp Mailbag

@ericktumang: “Who do you think will be the best receiver in this class long-term?”

Justin Blackmon. His production will suffer while GM Gene Smith stubbornly sticks to the Blaine Gabbert experiment over the next year or two, but I think he will end up with the best career of this year’s batch. Like Dez Bryant and Hakeem Nicks, he combines velcro hands with dominant run-after-catch ability.

Morgan will have my attention if he pushes for the No. 3 job in New Orleans this summer, but I see several major differences between the two. Whereas Morgan returned a punt for a touchdown in one preseason game and hauled in a 56-yard score in the next, Cruz exploded for six receptions, 145 yards and three touchdowns in a dominant preseason debut, showing incredible ball skills, plenty of speed and outstanding body control. Cruz had also earned gushing praise from the usually reticent coach Tom Coughlin throughout his rookie training camp whereas the majority of Morgan hype had come via beat writers. Finally, Cruz had an easier path to significant targets with Steve Smith gone and Mario Manningham banged up. Morgan won’t bypass Jimmy Graham, Darren Sproles and Marques Colston in the pecking order.

@ScottKlein79: “In a 16 team dynasty league & weak at WR. Who is the best stash? R.Cooper, K.Durham, Marvin Jones, Joe Morgan, K.Martin or McNutt.”

See above on Morgan. I wouldn’t take Jones higher than the third round in rookie drafts. Several people whom I trust are high enough on his college film to make the top half of this, however. I question Cooper’s instincts every time I see him play; McNutt looks like a better long-term stash to me. Durham looks like nothing more than a red-zone specialist in a best-case scenario.

I covered this one in-depth a few months ago. I think both are can’t-miss prospects and the top duo to enter the league since Adrian Peterson and Calvin Johnson a half-decade ago. Risk-averse owners should go for Luck as the sure thing. Those willing to gamble should roll the dice on Griffin’s upside.

@aggs82: “If you own Rivers with a win-now young team in keeper/dynasty, how much of a play do you make for Luck/RG3?”

I’d make a strong play for Luck/Griffin unless I owned Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton or Matthew Stafford. Rivers isn’t giving you an advantage over the other owners in the league right now. Luck and RGIII have a chance to do that. Pursue the rookies aggressively.

We don’t have enough NFL tape on Green to confidently assess his upside. Coming off ACL surgery, I’m not expecting much in 2012. I suspect he’ll be a tandem back, mostly handling passing downs, in 2013 and beyond. I do believe, though, that he has a higher career upside than James Starks.

I like Kaepernick as a Dynasty stash if he’s available on the cheap. I’d rather carry him than Alex Smith, since the latter is a weekly disadvantage in fantasy. Kaepernick’s athleticism makes him intriguing, though I suspect he’ll never have the accuracy to succeed as a franchise quarterback.

I’m taking Dez. Higher upside, especially in touchdowns (Marshall has scored more than seven TDs just once in his six-year career). Marshall has been on my “do not touch” list for years. That won’t change considering receivers often struggle upon changing teams. For those keeping score at home, Marshall has 17 police-related incidents since college. Bryant has two. That's not to mention Marshall's nasty habit of coach-killing and throwing quarterbacks under the proverbial bus. No thanks. I'll pass.

Yikes. Two players on the wrong side of my Sleepers & Busts column for the Football Draft Guide. Forced to pick my poison, I’d go with Turner for the greater shot at double-digit scores. The two backs actually caught the same number of passes last season, and Gore may have to contend with Brandon Jacobs at the goal line this time around.

After two years of data on the Flacco-to-Boldin connection, we know it doesn’t quite produce reliable WR3 value on a weekly basis. I’d rather wager that Luck-to-Wayne can produce at a more consistent level for the next couple of years.

Welcome to Rotoworld's second Twitter mailbag. I’m going to borrow from last year’s introduction for those interested in a quick Twitter primer.

A recovering Luddite myself, it took a while to warm up to our newest social media phenomenon. While I can sympathize with the sentiment that "nobody cares" about the mindless trivia of daily living, what Twitter does accomplish -- quite brilliantly -- is to merge clusters of people interested in similar topics, such as fantasy football.

It's transformed the nature of sports journalism, not just in breaking news instantaneously but also in tapping into a virtual army of participants sharing the same interests. For fantasy football leaguers, it's a godsend. Ask a beat writer, former scout, NFL insider, or fantasy "expert" for advice, and there's a good chance you will hear back within hours or even minutes. Make your voice heard in the latest NFL Draft speculation, track multiple fantasy sites, and even keep tabs on NFL players. You can't find a better way to gather information or pass along opinion than Twitter.

@Joey_Mitch: “Where do you stand on Chris Johnson dynasty value? If talent is there and effort was lacking, isn't he a prime buy low?”

Nobody has taken more time and effort to break down Johnson’s 2011 struggles and 2012 outlook than Evan Silva in this brilliant column. Silva came to the conclusion, not that Johnson should be avoided like the plague in the first round this year, but that film-watching mandates a “leap of faith” to expect a return to pre-holdout production.

As I’ve long been a Johnson acolyte, the open space over which I’m leaping is less a chasm than a fissure. The findings of Silva and several national analysts suggest Johnson’s problems were three-fold: effort, red-zone opportunity and the combination of Chris Palmer’s scheme and subpar run-blocking.

Johnson concedes he didn’t arrive in football shape last year. If you believe -- as I do -- that Johnson’s questionable effort was a vestige of his protracted holdout, there is tangible evidence on which to hang your hat for a 2012 turnaround. For the first time in his career, Johnson joined teammates for voluntary OTAs rather than working out on his own in Florida. Furthermore, CJ has added 8-10 pounds of muscle this offseason after shying away from contact last year. “People who know” Johnson expect a big bounce-back season because he has “rededicated himself” and is “running harder” than he was prior to his 2,000-yard season in 2009.

Even if you remain skeptical of the Titans’ sudden profusion of young talent and OC Chris Palmer’s more wide-open and “explosive” offense, simple regression toward the mean tells us Johnson will see a marked uptick in scoring opportunities. Whereas Arian Foster led the NFL with 64 red-zone carries, Johnson saw just 18 (for comparison’s sake, that’s one more than Jackie Battle). Similarly, Johnson’s six carries inside the 5-yard line pale in comparison to Michael Turner’s league-leading 28. It requires no leap of faith to expect touchdown numbers closer to Johnson’s 2008-10 average of 12.7 than last year’s total of 4.

ESPN’s Football Scientist K.C. Joyner believes Johnson’s early-season 2011 woes can be traced to the rough transition from Mike Heimerdinger’s counter elements to Palmer’s new scheme, which never had a chance to click after a lost offseason and training camp. Johnson’s per-carry average of 4.8 -- right in line with his career mark -- over the final nine games suggests the Titans were “all the way back to the kind of plays that Johnson liked best and that worked best for him in the past.” With plenty of practice to further hone that timing with his blockers this year, Johnson can be expected to carry over that second-half success into the 2012 season. Joyner lists Johnson as fantasy’s top running back and the No. 2 pick behind Aaron Rodgers. I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s not as absurd as the “experts” would have you believe. Every year the fantasy football world is forced to re-learn that a preseason consensus at the top of the draft is a wrong-headed notion.

@Joey_Mitch: “Mark Ingram: talent is still there in a great offense and banged up all of last year, buy this year?”

Absolutely. The offseason concerns over his minor knee scope were severely overblown, and Darren McFadden has proven that early-career turf toe scares have no ill effects on future production. Despite playing just 10 games as a rookie, Ingram still led the Saints’ multi-faceted backfield in carries.

On pace for 213 touches before his season-ending injury, Ingram is expected to be the lead dog in the backfield once again. It’s easy to forget that NFL Films guru Greg Cosell had fallen in “love” with Ingram as a potential “true foundation back” by mid-season last year. Cosell and coach Sean Payton both agreed the only thing keeping Ingram from strong Rookie of the Year consideration was Payton himself.

@Joey_Mitch: “Fred Davis, best tight end no one is talking about in an offense about to improve significantly? What kind of talent is Helu?”

Yes. Davis’ 66.3 yards per game last season were behind only Rob Gronkowski’s 82.9 and Jimmy Graham’s 81.9 among tight ends. Davis had 8-of-12 games over 50 yards whereas Jason Witten managed just 8-of-16 over the half-century mark. I do expect immediate improvement with Robert Griffin III injecting life into the Redskins this season.

Helu doesn’t have much in the way of lateral agility, but his impressive size/speed ratio, short-area burst, decisive cuts and above-average hands still make him an ideal fit for the Shanahans’ zone-blocking scheme. What’s difficult to gauge about his fantasy value is that his floor-to-ceiling range is perhaps wider than any top-40 back in the league.

If he stays healthy (a big “if”) and manages to become entrenched as a true workhorse back (an even bigger “if”), Helu has the potential to lead the NFL in rushing in this ground attack. On the other hand, he could spend the season wallowing in the fantasy mud as a change-of-pace back with an occasional breakout game wasted on your bench. I believe Helu can carve out a 4-5 year window of fantasy success, but durability concerns and the whims of Shanahan have me questioning his stability in Dynasty leagues.

Wallace’s ADP has dropped from late-third to mid-fourth in the past few days, according to FantasyFootballCalculator.com. If you’re dying to draft him, I think you can probably wait until the fifth round over the next week or two. If Wallace does reverse course and report to camp in the next two weeks, he's worthy of a fourth-round pick. Until then, I'd let someone else deal with the potential headache of "handcuffing" Emmanuel Sanders on the chance that Wallace sits at home for 10 games.

And, yes, Wallace has the talent and touchdown advantage over Antonio Brown -- in spades. Wallace hasn’t finished outside of the top-10 fantasy receivers since he’s joined the starting lineup. If Wallace re-joins his teammates in August, he's the pick over Brown in any format.

@elishearn: “Which RBs are you targeting in rounds 7-11 in redraft? RB25-RB50. From McGahee/Helu/Wells to Pead/Hillman/Jacquizz.”

Out of that group, I’d roll the dice on Helu in the late sixth round and Pead at the back-end of the draft. I think Pead has a major playmaking edge on Ronnie Hillman. Jacquizz is a mediocre talent and a third-down back, a species constantly overvalued in fantasy leagues.

@ericktumang: “Who do you think will be the best receiver in this class long-term?”

Justin Blackmon. His production will suffer while GM Gene Smith stubbornly sticks to the Blaine Gabbert experiment over the next year or two, but I think he will end up with the best career of this year’s batch. Like Dez Bryant and Hakeem Nicks, he combines velcro hands with dominant run-after-catch ability.

Morgan will have my attention if he pushes for the No. 3 job in New Orleans this summer, but I see several major differences between the two. Whereas Morgan returned a punt for a touchdown in one preseason game and hauled in a 56-yard score in the next, Cruz exploded for six receptions, 145 yards and three touchdowns in a dominant preseason debut, showing incredible ball skills, plenty of speed and outstanding body control. Cruz had also earned gushing praise from the usually reticent coach Tom Coughlin throughout his rookie training camp whereas the majority of Morgan hype had come via beat writers. Finally, Cruz had an easier path to significant targets with Steve Smith gone and Mario Manningham banged up. Morgan won’t bypass Jimmy Graham, Darren Sproles and Marques Colston in the pecking order.

@ScottKlein79: “In a 16 team dynasty league & weak at WR. Who is the best stash? R.Cooper, K.Durham, Marvin Jones, Joe Morgan, K.Martin or McNutt.”

See above on Morgan. I wouldn’t take Jones higher than the third round in rookie drafts. Several people whom I trust are high enough on his college film to make the top half of this, however. I question Cooper’s instincts every time I see him play; McNutt looks like a better long-term stash to me. Durham looks like nothing more than a red-zone specialist in a best-case scenario.

I covered this one in-depth a few months ago. I think both are can’t-miss prospects and the top duo to enter the league since Adrian Peterson and Calvin Johnson a half-decade ago. Risk-averse owners should go for Luck as the sure thing. Those willing to gamble should roll the dice on Griffin’s upside.

@aggs82: “If you own Rivers with a win-now young team in keeper/dynasty, how much of a play do you make for Luck/RG3?”

I’d make a strong play for Luck/Griffin unless I owned Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton or Matthew Stafford. Rivers isn’t giving you an advantage over the other owners in the league right now. Luck and RGIII have a chance to do that. Pursue the rookies aggressively.

We don’t have enough NFL tape on Green to confidently assess his upside. Coming off ACL surgery, I’m not expecting much in 2012. I suspect he’ll be a tandem back, mostly handling passing downs, in 2013 and beyond. I do believe, though, that he has a higher career upside than James Starks.

I like Kaepernick as a Dynasty stash if he’s available on the cheap. I’d rather carry him than Alex Smith, since the latter is a weekly disadvantage in fantasy. Kaepernick’s athleticism makes him intriguing, though I suspect he’ll never have the accuracy to succeed as a franchise quarterback.

I’m taking Dez. Higher upside, especially in touchdowns (Marshall has scored more than seven TDs just once in his six-year career). Marshall has been on my “do not touch” list for years. That won’t change considering receivers often struggle upon changing teams. For those keeping score at home, Marshall has 17 police-related incidents since college. Bryant has two. That's not to mention Marshall's nasty habit of coach-killing and throwing quarterbacks under the proverbial bus. No thanks. I'll pass.

Yikes. Two players on the wrong side of my Sleepers & Busts column for the Football Draft Guide. Forced to pick my poison, I’d go with Turner for the greater shot at double-digit scores. The two backs actually caught the same number of passes last season, and Gore may have to contend with Brandon Jacobs at the goal line this time around.

After two years of data on the Flacco-to-Boldin connection, we know it doesn’t quite produce reliable WR3 value on a weekly basis. I’d rather wager that Luck-to-Wayne can produce at a more consistent level for the next couple of years.

@tigervixxxen: “It’s difficult finding advice for a 20 team league. Who would be good targets for picks 14 & 26 in such league?”

I never go into a draft preparing to do anything more than select the best player available at the position of greatest value when my slot comes up. I’d bump up value for RB1s and QB1s slightly, however. If a Darren McFadden or Trent Richardson falls to 14, I’d jump on it. Same with Tom Brady or Drew Brees. I’d target Michael Vick at 26; he’s incredibly undervalued.

I’m not prepared to make that trade yet, so the answer is no. If I’m going to give up the best running back in the game, I need to be sure that Richardson is a special talent as opposed to the next Ronnie Brown.

@Ty_In_StL: “I have Demaryius Thomas, he cost me my 5th rd pick. Should I consider him my WR2 or go after someone else for that spot?”

Thomas’ current ADP is mid-fourth round, so you’re still getting value by forfeiting a fifth. Rotoworld ranks Thomas 14th at wide receiver. He’s a fine WR2 with greater risk and reward potential than the others in his tier.

I’d keep Rice and Graham. Rice will stabilize your running backs at his going rate while Graham is a monster advantage six rounds after his ADP. Jennings should be going in the third round anyway, so it’s not really in your favor to carry him over.

All four are very close in value. Considering talent and situation, Calvin has the most stable long-term value of any player in keeper and Dynasty formats. Averaging 400+ touches over the past three years, Rice is overdue for a few missed games due to injury. Julio gets the slight edge over Cam due to quarterbacks losing value in the PPR format.

@FootballBat1975: “First year keeper league. Only keep 3. I pick 7th. Looks like Rodgers/Brady/Brees/McCoy/Foster/Rice will be gone. Who do you pick @ 7?”

Calvin Johnson. See above. You want the most dominant offensive weapon on your roster year-in and year-out for the foreseeable future.

I don’t think you can go wrong with Stafford, Green or Hernandez at those prices. Murray is fine value, too, though I’m not convinced he’ll stay healthy long-term. Redman isn’t even in the discussion. Gun to my head, I’d go with Stafford in the Lions’ shotgun-heavy offense for the next few years.

As a general rule, the owner walking away with the quality wins the trade over the owner walking away with quantity. My inclination would be to keep the bird in the hand (McCoy) and beat the bushes for another keeper by going a different route. No need to trade a stud just to come up with a fourth keeper. Get creative with an owner that has a surplus.

I want Julio on as many redraft, Dynasty and keeper rosters as possible. He’s going to explode. I would flip Cobb and Rice in a pure Dynasty league, but the latter has a far greater chance to be a weekly asset in 2012. I prefer Cobb’s talent to Young’s. Jackson is a fine bet for a bounce-back season, but that’s not worth $26. Robinson isn’t going to stay healthy or finish with even half of last year’s 11 touchdowns.

@mj_baroz: “Has any team greatly improved their outlook as a DEF/ST in fantasy?”

Eagles, Seahawks, Bills, Cardinals

Don’t forget the Eagles were arguably the NFL’s best team over the final month of the regular season. The defense allowed just 46 points over the final four games, the defensive personnel has improved thanks to the DeMeco Ryans trade and a strong draft, and rookie return dynamo Damaris Johnson is the NCAA’s all-time record holder in all-purpose yards.

The defenses of Seattle and Arizona were greatly improved down the stretch as well, and the Cardinals boast the most explosive punt returner in the league. The Bills added more defensive talent than any team in the league this offseason.

Chris Wesseling is a senior football editor and Dynasty league analyst for Rotoworld.com. The 2011 NFL season marks his fifth year with Rotoworld and his third year contributing to NBCSports.com. He can be found on Twitter @ChrisWesseling.Email :Chris Wesseling